


When The Lights Are Out

by Ultra



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, Love, Power Outage, Season/Series 02, Sharing, Thunder and Lightning, Trapped In Elevator, Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 16:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12016734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: A thunderstorm causes a power outage, leaving Cassie and Jake trapped in The Library elevator together.





	When The Lights Are Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollymac79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollymac79/gifts).



There were a great many levels to the Library. From the Annex, it was possible to travel down to an inordinate number of floors in order to retrieve the necessary information from the shelves, vaults, and rooms. The curious thing to Cassie was that no matter how far away from ground level she was, somehow she could still hear the whatever was happening outside. It made very little sense scientifically speaking but then with the way magic worked within the Library and beyond, she figured there must be an explanation.

For instance, perhaps each level of the Library existed on more than one plane of reality, or maybe it was in essence an astral projection of a kind. However it was done, whatever the science or magic of the situation, she was currently twenty five floors down from ground level and still the thunder from the storm outside of the Annex seemed to be getting louder and more frequent all the time.

Intrigued as she was, and almost done with her research, Cassie headed for the elevator to go back up to the Annex and see what was happening. She made it to the fifteenth floor when the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

“Jake, hi,” she greeted him. “I didn’t know you were down here.”

“Just checking on a few things,” he told her, stepping into the small room beside her. “Y’know, it’s the weirdest thing. I can hear-”

“Thunder!” Cassie cut in. “From the storm. All the way down here!” she declared with the usual excitement in her voice and light in her eyes. “Ten floors below here and I could still hear it.”

“You’d think it’d be too far.”

“But it’s not.”

They were both clearly equal parts intrigued and just a little freaked out by the weirdness, even after all the other strange things they had discovered and encountered. The Library was just full of surprises, even after all this time. It was something they would be talking about now, except when Jake and Cassie got to be alone together, things always seemed to get quiet lately.

In the beginning, they were awkward friends. There was a trust issue, caused by Cassandra betraying the team just days after meeting them all. Jacob took that personally and it was a good long while before he got over it. Still, things were better now. After his backing her plan at the university last week, there was no doubt in Cassie’s mind that Jake did have faith in her, that he liked her just as much if not more than he had in the beginning. She certainly liked him too, but then, maybe that was at least half the problem. Sometimes liking somebody only made it harder to talk to them, especially when you were alone together.

The floors flew by. Nine, eight, seven, six, and just when the two of them were thinking they were about to be free of this awkwardness, there was a jolt and everything froze. A clap of thunder echoed down through the elevator shaft and there the car sat, hanging on its cables, not moving at all.

“What...?” Cassie began to ask, just as the lights went out.

“Damnit!” Jake cursed, hand slamming the wall next to where all the buttons should be, though he couldn’t see a damn thing.

“I don’t think it has an emergency button,” Cassie noted. “It’s not a regular elevator and...”

She stopped short of saying any more when one single emergency bulb blinked on over-head, bathing them in a hazy, ugly, orange light.

“I think you’re right,” said Jake, surveying the panel as best he could. “No emergency button, and somehow I doubt the others will hear us yelling from five floors down.”

“Five and a half,” Cassie told him, smiling. “The last number was six and the customary one point five seconds hadn’t passed to get us to five. We’re at five and a half.”

“I stand corrected,” said Jake, marvelling as he always did at how her mind worked.

He knew plenty on his own subject, art history and architecture and all. He was no dunce, despite the stereotype, but Cassie was something else. She never had failed to amaze him or draw him in, even when he didn’t trust her and tried his darndest not to like her at all.

“Well, we could be here a while,” she said eventually, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest. “I’m guessing there’s a back-up generator but with Flynn and Eve out on a mission, that just leaves Jenkins and Ezekiel to figure things out.”

“They’re smart guys. Especially Jenkins,” Jake considered, dropping down into the opposite corner of the elevator. “But with Jones getting in his way? Yeah, might be a while,” he agreed.

They sat in silence at first, but eventually it just got painful to keep quiet. It was slightly easier to make conversation when they couldn’t see each other all that clearly. Jake asked Cassie what research she had been doing, and she asked him the same in reply. Then she commented that it was lucky neither of them were claustrophobic, which led to general talk of phobias and fears, including tales from their childhoods. Somehow, that led into a sort of game. In turn, they asked for the story of the other’s ‘first’, from the first book they ever bought for themselves to the first movie they went to see without their parents. It was fun, easy, and it passed the time for a good long while.

Eventually, it got harder to think of good ‘firsts’ to question, and it was Jake’s turn to choose something.

“Okay, er, first... kiss?” he tried, running out of ideas for anything else to say.

It really hadn’t occurred to him that Cassie wouldn’t have an answer to give to that, or that it would be in any way painful for her to talk about. Embarrassing, sure, that was a possibility, but sat here alone in the semi-dark, he figured that wouldn’t be quite such a big deal. It hadn’t been up to this point.

“Um, tenth grade,” she said eventually, practically hiding what little Jake could see of her face behind her hair. “Billy Morris. He, er... He was my first and only date too.”

Jake closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He hadn’t thought about it, how Cassie’s high school career had been cut short and college had never come her way. With her abilities, and the ‘brain grape’ they usually didn’t mention, things had changed. She didn’t have the normal teen years that the rest of them enjoyed.

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” said Jake, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not. It’s fine,” she told him, though the sadness echoed in her voice still. “You didn’t know. Besides, it’s not such a sad memory. Billy was nice. He took me to see a movie. It was terrible, but that didn’t matter. I was happy just to be there, to be on a date with a guy that actually, genuinely liked me.

When he drove me home after and we said goodnight, I turned to walk away and he grabbed my hand. He pulled me back around and he just looked at me like he was about to say something amazing. Then he kissed me.

I remember floating back to the house, feeling like a princess in a Disney movie who just got her prince,” she said, giggling prettily.

“Sounds nice,” said Jake, wishing he could better see her face and beautiful smile right now.

“Yeah, well,” she said then, sadness creeping back into her tone. “Two days later, I was diagnosed with the tumour and... and that was that. Mom and Dad pulled me out of school, took away my cell phone, thinking maybe that was a factor in me getting the tumour, cut me off from everyone. Next time I saw Billy, maybe a year later, he was holding hands with Marcie Hernandez.”

Jake shook his head. He didn’t know what to say to her, but God, he wanted to make it better, if only there was a way. Getting up off his butt, he moved around closer to her and placed his hand on hers on top of her knee.

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” he told her.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, smiling in spite of it all. “And it was years ago now. No big deal. Come on, tell me your story. First kiss.”

She was putting a brave face on it, but Jake knew she was hurting. Even in the bad lighting and her over-the-top attempts to be cheery, he knew it hurt for Cassie to remember her past and what she lost in those sad and lonely years.

“Nothing much to tell,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Me and Becky Martin, we must’ve been all of fourteen, neighbours since we were kids and... and, I don’t know, one day she just laid one on me, out of nowhere.”

“Wow. Forward thinking girl,” said Cassie, smiling widely.

“She was that,” Jake agreed. “I kind of like that in a woman though.”

He looked across at her and was sure he saw her shiver, despite the overly warm and cramped conditions of the elevator in the dark. Maybe she understood that he was paying her compliment as much as anything else. It was true. Sure, it was Baird who dove into situations head-first, fists flying, gun pulled, but Cassie was maybe even more brave. She put herself into situations where she didn’t know for sure she would come out okay. She wasn’t trained for combat and she walked around with a death sentence in her head every day, but she kept on going, kept on throwing herself into the middle of things. Never flinched, never shied away. It was just one more amazing thing to love about her.

“Jake...” she started to say, suddenly much closer than he remembered.

The truth was, Cassie couldn’t take much more of this. She had been falling for Jacob Stone from the first day she met him, that she was sure of, and when he didn’t trust her, it broke her heart more than a little. Lately, they got along better, so well that she half expected something to happen. She didn’t know what exactly, but something. When he agreed to her plan last week at the university, she knew at last that he trusted her as much as he claimed to like her from the beginning. Of course, if she could just be sure that it was the same kind of ‘like’ that she was feeling...

‘Only one way to find out for sure,’ she thought, leaning in a little closer.

She was never going to get a better shot than this, alone together in the half-dark, with Jake having just told her he liked the go-getter type of woman. Heck, the last topic of conversation was actually kissing. There couldn’t be any harm in leaning over just a little bit more.

Right when Cassie thought she might have pushed her centre of gravity just a smidge too far and was sure to tip over, Jake’s arm wrapped around her, and his lips landed on hers. It was a heck of a kiss, made better by the wait Cassie had to endure before it, she was sure. Anticipation exploded into passion as she moved to get closer and ended up practically on top of Jake, as the moment went on and on.

They were oblivious to their surroundings, lost in the kiss they were sharing, so much so that they didn’t realise the power was back at first. The doors had opened at the Annex before they ever pulled apart. Blinking against too bright lights, they looked into the faces of Eve, Flynn, Jones, and Jenkins.

“Wow,” said Baird, tilting her head to fully take in the tangle of limbs that was Jake and Cassie.

“Huh,” remarked Flynn. “Well, this is… a development.”

The next thing the awkward couple knew they were looking up at Jenkins and Ezekiel, both with hands out-stretched to Baird and Flynn respectively, until finally twenty bucks was deposited into each of their waiting palms.

“I tried to tell you, mate,” said Jones, grinning wide at the head Librarian.

“I just couldn’t see it.” Eve shrugged.

“Sometimes,” said Jenkins, pocketing his twenty dollars, “when we’re looking around at everything else, it is entirely possible to miss what is right under our own nose,” he said, looking at Jake and Cassie again with a smile.

All the two of them could do was blush and look at each other, wearing matching smiles of their own.


End file.
